Link Boxers: It’s the end of the world as we know it, and we feel fine

Well, we’ve done it. We’ve reached the beginning of the end of human history, what with that Mayan Calendar thing and all, and we here at Link thought the best way to commemorate the end was to continue to make vaguely funny references in our oddly-titled briefs column.

That’s how the world ends: not with a bang, but with snark.

Get a little more technical

If, however, you’re hedging you’re bets on the world continuing past the end of 2012 (Luddites, the lot of you!) you might want to take the time to upgrade your tech skills. The folks at Code Academy are dubbing 2012 “Code Year” and sending anyone who signs up at their site, a free weekly interactive program designed to help marketing geeks and others learn to code. For the less technically inclined of us, it seems like a good place to start to shed your coding fears in the privacy of your own home.

And the prize for worst customer service goes to…

Need a reminder about how *not* to do customer service? We give you the saga of Ocean Marketing and the Avenger controller. If you were making merry over the holidays, you might have missed this spat going viral (we did; the exchange was brought to our attention by Curtiss Grymala). A hopeful customer emailed Ocean Marketing, which represented the manufacturers of the Avenger, trying to find out when he might expect to receive the controller, which he’d pre-ordered.

After a couple of frustrating emails, the exchange went to Defcon1 as Paul Christoforo from Ocean Marketing encouraged the customer to “Grow up you look like a complete child bro. I Don’t have my controller so im gonna cry to the world … Really ??” (The spelling and grammar there is Mr. Christoforo’s. For multiple reasons, you can be assured he will not be writing for Link any time soon.)

Gamers being gamers, the exchange was quickly sent to several websites and forums. Things got worse as Christoforo insulted the owner of a trade show, and generally continued to make himself look awful. A few phrases from the exchange became so ubiquitous that even Geico’s Twitter account couldn’t resist a little fun.

The moral of the story? No matter how bad a day you’re having, being dumb with your customers and clients can only make things worse.

A thought or two on CES

Maybe it’s no longer possible to limit conversation on the gargantuan trade show to “a thought or two.” The dang thing’s so big, you have people complaining of CES fatigue. But if we’ve had one insight from items coming out of the show thus far, it’s just how much smartphone and tablets are changing the game. Sure it’s been talked about for a long time, but the angry birds are really coming home to roost now. As All Things Digital notes, point and shoot cameras, GPS devices and even mp3 players are all taking big, big hits to their sales.

Think about what that means for the kinds of content you’re delivering to your students, and look at the CES coverage to get a hint into what your freshmen will be bringing to campus with them this fall.